Submitted on: 04.08.2016
Large-Scale digital preservation initiatives and collaborations as a strategy
for addressing technology obsolescence in preservation of Africana digital
news content
Michael Kasusse
Digitisation Section, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
[email protected]
Ifeoma Stella Njoku
The Library of Federal University of Technology Oweri, Nigeria
[email protected]
Boateng Agyemang Badu
Berekum College of Education, Ghana
[email protected]
Anitha Jackson Mwakyagi
College of Business Education, Dodoma, Tanzania
[email protected]
Copyright © 2016 by Kasusse Michael, Ifeoma Stella Njoku, Boateng Agyemang Badu, and Anitha
Jackson Mwakyagi This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Abstract:
Working together to produce sustainable content while being mindful of technology
obsolescence may support preservation sustainability of Africana digital news content.
This paper demonstrates how Large-Scale digital preservation initiatives (LSDIs) and
collaborations can become a solution to technology obsolescence in preservation of borndigital Africana news content as a form of back up with for original content using cloudbased solutions.
Keywords: Africana Digital News content, Technology Obscelence, Preservation and Conservation,
Large-Scale digital preservation initiatives (LSDIs)
Introduction
Several academic libraries in Africa have the Africana Section that collects and stores
general African literature dating back to the late nineteenth century including; books, papers,
letters, newspapers, news recording, notices, and reports, diaries of events, church
memoranda, registers, and manuscripts that are important to their country’s heritage. The
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Makerere University Library (Africana Section), using its legal deposit mandate of acquiring
all publication on and about Uganda, evolved a new niche of harvesting “born-digital” news
articles on and about Uganda and Africa from local and international news portals for
purposes of including them to the Makerere Institutional Repository (MakIR) formerly
known as the Uganda Science Digital Library (USDL).
Using institutional repositories to preserve information including "born-digital" news
content while increasing their usage is an optimistic trend but it relies on a technology
environment and prone to challenges of technology mainly; compatibility and upgrades that
may bring about obsolescence; storage space and content security. The rapidly changing
technology environment may render a repository obsolete and limit access to digital content.
The changing technology environment is also capable of making hugely invested antiquated
machines or technology obsolete in a very short time. In addition to financial consequences
of obsolescence there is a risk of survival of the preserved digital news content (Namaganda,
2011).
Problem Statement
Born-digital Africana news content is here today because library institutions are
committed to harvesting the content through their legal deposit mandate of acquiring all
publication on and about Uganda or African at large. The digital content is also here because
it is being preserved and conserved by library institutions using repositories. However, the
born-digital Africana news content will be gone tomorrow because of the rapidly changing
technology environment that may render a repository obsolete and limit access to digital
content. This is because preservation and conservation of digital content using repositories is
practiced in a software environment which is changing rapidly hence capable of making
hugely invested antiquated machines or technology obsolete in a very short time. In addition
to financial consequences of obsolesce, this risks the survival of the digital news content.
Institutions instead conduct continuous transfer of storage and processing devices to suitable
devices, back up files on CD-ROMs and other robust media. The transfer may not guarantee
the safety of the digital content (Habibzadeh, 2013; Namaganda, 2011; Becker, 2009; Evans,
2008).
There is a need to strengthen Large-Scale digital preservation initiatives and
collaborations as a strategy for addressing technology obsolescence in the preservation of
Africana digital news content as a form of back up for original content using cloud
computing. Large-Scale digital preservation initiatives and collaborations have the ability to
bargain and attain secure and cost effective back up using the cloud while guarding against
the financial consequences of technology obsolesce and the risks that they bring to the
survival of digital news.
Aim of the paper
To demonstrate how Large-Scale digital preservation initiatives (LSDIs) and
collaborations can become a solution to technology obsolescence in preservation of borndigital Africana news content as a form of back up for original content.
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Literature Review
Preserving African Born-digital News Content
Born-digital information materials are materials created and used in digitals form.
They range from emails, blogs and websites, tweets and social media contents, pictures and
videos, news and other business portals, to research and academic publications,
organisational documents, court rulings among others. This content is becoming the
backbone of an information society which has a tendency of convincing; and as thus the
survival actions of questioning, thinking and understanding required instantly is the major
cause of born-digital information materials (British Library 2012-2016). On the other hand,
the purpose of preservation is to ensure protection of information of enduring value for access
by present and future generations (Conway, 1990: 206).
Preservation is one of the major core functions of libraries and archives and over the
years, these institutions have established formal preservation programs for both traditional
materials and now for the born-digital information materials. These programs include regular
allocation of resources for preservation, preventive measures to arrest deterioration of
materials, remedial measures to restore the usability of selected materials and the
incorporation of preservation needs and requirements into the overall library strategic plans
(Becker, 2009). Digital preservation is widely understood as the series of managed activities
necessary to ensure continued access to digital materials for as long as necessary. Successful
preservation requires planning, care and coordination over time (Digital Preservation
Coalition, 2008). The concept of digital preservation encompasses materials that begin and
end its life in digital form as well as material that is converted from traditional to digital
formats (O'Toole, 1989).
Digital newspaper collections are a key historical record of human activities. The
Makerere University Library (Africana Section) is a legal deposit centre with the mandate of
acquiring all publication on and about Uganda. In recent years, the library evolved a new
niche of harvesting “born-digital” news articles on and about Uganda and Africa from local
and international news portals for purposes of including them to the Makerere Institutional
Repository (MakIR) formerly known as the Uganda Science Digital Library (USDL). The
USDL is a digitization projects that was initiated in Makerere University Library in 2004
through collaborative linkages with Tufts University, University of Tennessee, Knoxville and
the University of Bergen, Norway. USDL was created using Dspace as a preservation
strategy to guarantee permanent access to scholarly materials, digitize cultural heritage
materials and provide wider and easier access to these materials, conserve the originals,
possibly add value to images and collections, and provide opportunities for income
generation (Namaganda, 2011).
The major challenge of digital preservation is that materials are vulnerable to
deterioration and catastrophic loss, and even under ideal conditions, they are short lived
relative to materials in traditional formats. This makes for the time frame for decisions and
actions to prevent loss in a matter of years and not decades. The additional challenge for
born-digital news materials is the problem of obsolescence in retrieval and playback
technologies driven primarily by market forces (Evans, 2008). Another challenge is the
absence of established standards, protocols, and proven methods for preserving digital
information although in recent times, there are guidelines for digital newspaper preservation
readiness (Skinner, 2014). Digital library research has focussed on architectures and systems
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for information organisation and retrieval, presentation and visualisation, and administration
of intellectual property rights. As a consequence, digital preservation remains largely
experimental and replete with risks associated with untested methods. In the same way,
digital preservation requirements have not been factored into the entire planning of
preservation programs (Levy, 1995).
When making a true reflection of the challenges of digital preservation and the
consequences they bring to the materials, there is no doubt that we need to think of the
development of “digital vellum” to preserve old software and hardware so that out-of-date
files could be recovered no matter how old they are. In other words, we do not only preserve
the digital content, but also preserve the technology as well (National Archives of Australia,
2011).
Technology obsolescence in preservation and conservation of digital content
Nature and fashion are changing the world everyday in different ways including
technology. Technology is changing fast and what seems to be nearly perfect today can be
not good enough tomorrow. It is very hard to imagine that the good old technology that
played analogue audio news content and was around for nearly a century was misplaced
almost overnight on arrival of digital equipment. Although there could be a rebirth of the old
technology, it is usually in a lukewarm fashion of keeping the market semi-alive for
sometime but the truth is, there are more convenient options today. This is evident when
using the analogy of CD’s and DVD’s that are slowly but surely giving way to more
convenient media as USB flash drives, SD cards and mobile phones (with both storage and
playback functions) that are rendering the CD’s obsolete (Day, 2006). In preservation and
conservation of digital content, this is an ongoing challenge because digital materials
including key historical documents could be lost forever because programs to view them will
become defunct. Having digital content in the highest possible quality and being able to use it
on future-day equipment is a must because obsolete technology impairs access to dependent
digital materials (National Archives of Australia, 2011).
On the other hand, maintaining obsolete equipment capable of playing old formats for
preservation purposes is equally recommended. Some digital news content especially in audio
and video have limited life and start deteriorating within 10 years. Although the content may
appear in the highest possible quality, it is unlikely that some formats will still be playable
after another 100 years hence the need to maintain obsolete equipment. Well maintained old
equipment often sourced from reliable sources could be modified by changing parts to
compatible modern-day ones and adding modern functionalities (Verheul, 2006; Ohio State
University Library, 2013).
How LSDIs and Collaborations are a solution to technology obsolescence in
preservation of born-digital content
Due to the expensive nature of preservation projects characterized by not-for-profit
services such as open access, the next generation trend by libraries in Africa is use
collaboration as a strategy of addressing technology obsolescence in order to mobilize
resources, sustain or maintain wider access and sharing of information. Many research
libraries and archives have begun or are about to begin Large-Scale digital preservation
initiatives (LSDIs). The main players in LSDIs are cultural institutions, commercial
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companies such as Google and Microsoft, and non-profit groups including the Open Content
Alliance (OCA), and the Million Book Project (MBP). The primary motivation of these
groups is to expand access to heritage and scholarly resources.
The existing motivations of LSDIs have been expanded to include digital preservation
and are very effective in addressing challenges of digital preservation especially technology
obsolescence. More often born-digital news content is processed and preserved for public
consumption. This brings in the concept of collaborative consumption hence purchasing the
time accessible to an item as opposed to purchasing the item to own. Time for access is
purchased from institutions with the capacity to attain permanent preservation and storage
provided by cloud-based solutions. This capacity is achieved through LSDIs that have a pool
of resources and is able to bargain cost effective strategies (NetHosting, 2011).
Cloud computing is entrusting digital information materials to information systems
that are managed by external parties on remote servers “in the cloud”. The cloud is used as a
metaphor for the internet. The technology for preservation becomes a service delivered over
the internet hence “Software as a Service” (SaaS). This involves taking SaaS (cloud services
such as servers and storage) and moving them outside an organisations’ firewall on shared
systems. Webmail, Google drive, Drop box, Onedrive, iCloud are clear examples of SaaS.
There is a certain amount of risk of potential loss of data and often the need for the source
archival material to be re-encoded into a lighter, user acceptable format because the solutions
are usually provided by third parties and commercial organisations (Ryan, 2011).
Cloud computing has become an efficient facilitator of sharing information and
ensuring permanent storage of digital materials. On the other hand, LSDIs have the capacity
to envisage the challenges of digital preservation and address them through collaborative
resource mobilisation and bargaining with third parties and commercial organisations to
address challenges of technology obsolescence.
Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge Carnegie CPD 5 program for providing the financial and
materials support to conduct the research. The authors also acknowledge their employing
universities including; Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda; Berekum College of
Education, Ghana; College of Business Education, Dodoma, Tanzania and The Library of
Federal University of Technology Owerri, Nigeria; for permitting them to conduct this
research from the School of Information Technology, University of Pretoria.
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